


Touchscreen

by WithCadence



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:15:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithCadence/pseuds/WithCadence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve goes to Tony for help when getting Bucky a phone ends up being more difficult than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touchscreen

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on tumblr saw my other headcanon-turned-fic and requested that I turn their headcanon into a fic as well. This is the product of that. Written very quickly, and unedited for the large part, because I am unprofessional.

“This is a phone?”

“That is a phone.”

Bucky turned the iPhone over in his hands. Moved it up and down.

“This is not a phone.” He stated, frowning.

Steve smirked. “It’s definitely a phone. I know. It’s weird.” He dug his hand into his pocket, fished out his own tiny cell phone. “This is also a phone.” He waved it in front of Bucky’s face. Bucky stared at it. “Mine’s a little bit older.” Steve flipped it open, then closed again. “I thought it would be simpler. Turns out they’re a lot harder to navigate.” He gestured to the neat row of iPhones on the counter in front of them. “These ones are easy. At least according to Natasha.”

Steve didn’t want Bucky to get a phone. Not really. Steve didn’t want Bucky to have anything to do with the 21st century. He wanted Bucky to focus on himself. On regaining his memories, his identity, his humanity. The technology could come later. But Tuesday’s breakdown, the four hours they spent searching, and Nick Fury’s loud and angry lecture had convinced Steve otherwise. Bucky needed a phone. At least he did if he was going to have bouts of psychosis and escape Steve’s apartment to harass pedestrians in Russian.

Steve frowned. He didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Here.” He took the phone from Bucky’s hands, unlocked it. “So you’ve got… texts. That’s this little speech bubble. I’ll show you more with that later. Um, a clock, a calculator, a compass, maps…”

“On a _phone_?” Bucky went to grab it back, staring at the small slab with unblinking eyes.

“In my opinion it’s a bit much.” Steve shrugged, handing the phone back to Bucky. “But it’s easy, I guess. And we can track you. If, you know, we… need to.”

Bucky nodded once, curtly, tensed up slightly. Steve silently wished he could suck the words back in but knew they needed to be said. A moment of rigid silence hung between them. Bucky stared at the phone, unmoving. Then, 

“This is pretty neat.” He smiled, weighing the phone in his hand. “I think I actually like this. I’m impressed.” Steve exhaled. Bucky smiled down at the phone, a child holding his favorite toy. “How do I-?”

“Oh, yeah, uh, that little box, right there, slide it to the right to get into the phone.” 

Steve hadn’t really considered that what happened next might happen. Nor did he expect to feel so suddenly guilty and terrible when Bucky’s metallic thumb clinked against the glass, repeatedly trying and failing to unlock the phone.

“Is it broken?” Bucky looked up at Steve, who had unknowingly started holding his breath.

“Uh, no. You - uh…” He cleared his throat. “Your other hand.” 

Bucky looked down at the phone, gingerly gripped between five metal fingers.

“Oh.” He said quietly.

“It’s – you know – it’s not a big deal.” Steve’s words stumbled out. “I mean you don’t really need two hands.” _That was so stupid._ “I mean I mostly just use one with mine. My phone…. One hand. So…”

Bucky set the phone down in its case. Slipped his silver hand back into the pocket of his hoodie that he insisted on wearing even though Steve told him not to because it was too hot and because lots of people have prosthetic arms and no one would notice.

“I’m left handed.” Low monosyllables. He shook his head. Steve said nothing. “It’s fine. I can get a different phone.” 

Steve’s eyes darted back and forth between Bucky and the iPhone on the counter. 

“No.” he shook his head. Bucky looked up. Steve waved over a sales associate, pulled out his wallet. “No. You know what – we’ll figure it out.” 

\- - - - - - - - - -

“Let me get this straight.” Tony leaned back in his chair. “You want me to mess with this little apple trinket phone so your soviet cyborg BFF can play flappy bird?”

Steve felt Bucky tense up beside him. Felt his eyes drop to the floor. Steve shot Tony a glare, and through gritted teeth and a calm voice, “I don’t know what that is. But yes.”

Tony met the glare and glanced sideways at Bucky, who now refused to meet his gaze. He looked back at Steve and gave a microscopic nod. A tiny moment of understanding, a silent apology. Then he shrugged. 

“I can’t.”

Steve scowled. Repeated. “You can’t.”

“Well I can, but it’s a stupid idea.” He waved a pen in his hand as he spoke, conducting an imaginary orchestra. “You’re asking me to engineer a touch screen that responds to not only the electrical impulses of human skin, but to contact with metal. Hope you have fun with all the accidental calls from his belt buckle. Or spare change.” 

“Are you going to help us, or not?” Steve’s voice came out far angrier than he had intended. Tony raised an eyebrow. 

“Steve, it’s fine.” Bucky hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

Tony stood up from his chair abruptly, walked directly over to them, stood straight in front of Bucky. “Your arm is already controlled by electrical impulses. It’s hooked into your nervous system. Obviously. How else would you be able to control it the way that you do?” He eyed the black hoodie sleeve covering Bucky’s arm, the hand shoved into the pocket. “The impulses just don’t extend all the way to the exterior. Why would they, there’s no need for them to. I could tinker with that – see if I can’t give you a few good fingers to tweet with.” Tony raised a hand, wiggled his fingers in front of Bucky’s face. It was clear to Steve that he was trying to help. It was also clear that it wasn’t working. 

Bucky said nothing. Tony & Steve waited a brief moment for a reply, before Tony got bored, and “Well?” He threw up his hands. “Come on. I need to see. Show me what you’re working with.” 

Steve knew the signs and saw the twitch in Bucky’s jaw, knew that every muscle in his body had suddenly tensed. Still, Bucky complied, his movements stiff and slow. He raised his arms to the back of his neck and tugged off his hoodie.

It fell in a soft heap on the floor in front of him. Steve glanced at him sideways, willing himself not to look. He hadn’t really seen it until now. Bucky hadn’t wanted him too. But there he stood, in a white wife beater, jutted collarbones, hunched over so that he could fold into his own body and disappear. 

The entire upper left section of Bucky’s torso was gnarled and grisly. Thick ridges of pink and white scars twisted around each other in grotesque patterns. They moved with his chest, twisting, rising and falling with every breath. His arm connected to his shoulder not by one clean surgical line but by deformed and discolored patches of skin that clung to the metal like an alien parasite. Small flecks of other metals around his shoulder were barely visible, previous failed appendages, tucked underneath dead tissue. Ghosts of experiments past. Steve closed his eyes. He did not want to think about it. He did not want to think about it. He did not want to think about it.

The silence had stretched on almost too long when,

“Cool.” Tony’s eyes fixed on the arm like a hungry dog. “That’s so cool. Can I touch it? I mean, I’m going to touch it. It’s going to happen.”

Bucky’s shoulders lowered a few inches. An exhale. He extended his arm, offered it to Tony, who gripped it almost immediately. “This is amazing. How long have you had this one? This isn’t the first one you’ve been fitted with.” 

“I… I don’t really remember.” Bucky’s voice came more casual than Steve expected.

“Right – yeah – sorry.” Tony waved his hand nonchalantly, still transfixed with Bucky’s arm, bending his wrist backwards and forwards. He suddenly stood upright, stared at Bucky with a twinkle in his eye that Steve had grown to love and hate simultaneously.

“Wanna see mine?” and without hesitation, Tony tugged off his shirt as well, tossing it on top of Bucky’s. He looked down at his glowing chest plate and tapped it with his fingers. “Eh? He said, looking up and Bucky and then back down again. “What do you think?”

Bucky blinked. Raised an eyebrow. “Cool.” he repeated. Tony beamed. 

“Right? So cool.” He ran his fingers over it, “I used to have crazy scars around it too. Nasty. I guess that’s what happens when you perform surgery in a cave. Looked like… well, you.”

Steve was nanoseconds away from shooting Tony another glare when he noticed Bucky was beginning to smile.

“I’ve got something for the scarring, if you want it.” Tony nodded at Bucky’s torso. “Or not. It’s kind of badass.” He turned to Steve. “What do you got?” 

Steve raised an eyebrow, slightly taken aback at the entire situation. “What do I got? Well, let’s see… I got nicked pretty bad falling out of that heli-carrier, I’ve got a scar on –”

“Pfft boring.” Tony scoffed, scowling dramatically. He threw his arm around Bucky, pulled him forward with a bit of force. “Come on, Bucky boy. We’ll go see if we can’t do something about your phone. Go tinker with man toys with our shirts off. It’ll be very homoerotic, trust me, you’ll love it.”

Bucky’s eyes were still fixed on the floor, his head tucked downward, chin on his chest – but he was smiling. Grinning, ear to ear, laughing quietly. Steve stood frozen, staring shocked at Tony. The first time Bucky had laughed in… well… in over half a century. Steve’s shoulders slumped downwards in an satisfied surrender, an _‘okay, Stark, you win’_ shrug. Tony turned Bucky around and began walking to his workstation on the other side of the room. 

“We’re leaving your effeminate, non-cyborg blondie boy over there. He’s not manly enough to do shirtless things with us.” Bucky laughed again, and Steve felt an overwhelming sense of comfort in such a strangely familiar sound. His throat tightened, lips bit down on a smile.

Tony threw a glance over his shoulder at Steve, who mouthed, “ _Thank you._ ”

Tony rolled his eyes, and Steve sat down in Tony’s chair, settling in for a while, content to close his eyes and wait, to listen to the sounds of his friend coming back to him.


End file.
